Working group appointed to prepare a bill concerning bondholder representatives and to lay the ground for other bond market development measures
On 25 February 2015, Minister of Finance Antti Rinne appointed a working group to prepare legislation concerning bondholder representatives and to assess other measures to improve bond markets and their functionality and other legal development needs related to the topic.
The working group is tasked with preparing a Government proposal on legislation concerning bondholder representatives. Where appropriate and at its discretion, the working group will take account of the objectives and comments included in the Ministry of Finance's assessment memorandum and in the feedback given to it as it was circulated for consultation. Separate legislation for bondholder representatives was widely supported in the summary of opinions prepared by the Ministry of Finance as part of its official duties on the basis of its assessment memorandum and published on 24 November 2014.
Legislation on bondholder representatives' operations is intended to be built on a limited framework act. This would intervene as little as possible with market actors' issues arranged in accordance with current practice under freedom of contract, and only to the extent needed to remove the legal problems compromising legal certainty in some areas, highlighted in the assessment memorandum and the collected comments. In other words, the framework act would not cause a need for the market actors to change the terms and conditions of existing bonds or other related agreements. Instead, the framework act would leave room for case-specific flexibility and allow market actors to develop market practices independently.
Insofar as its resources permit, the working group may also assess, investigate and specify other measures so as to improve bond markets and their functionality and other legal development needs related to the topic. Following the Government's proposal, the results of these assessments and investigation may be published as a separate memorandum together with potential recommendations for future action.
Working group
Jarno Tepora, Professor of Civil Law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Helsinki has been invited to act as Chairman of the Working Group. The group’s term of office will run from 1 March 2015 to 30 June 2016.
Further information:
Secretary General of the working group, Ministerial Adviser Aki Kallio, tel. +358 (0)2955 30477
[email protected]